Suggestion: First steps in NPCs/AI - Travelers on roads

I know that there are dozens of various NPC-related requests and suggestions and elaborate scenarios with functioning NPC-populated villages, NPC-armies and stuff like that. Probably the devs are also hard at work to implement engaging NPCs to interact with. However, I'd like to suggest a kind of "easy" starting point for NPC development.

Travelers on roads.

There would be no immediate need for extended coding effort, large amount of new animations and other assets etc. like with the NPC villages/armies if the first NPCs (in addition to the "barbarians") would be civilians traveling along the roads. From time to time (few times a day, during daytime), groups of say 1 to 5 persons would travel along the nearby roads by foot. Player could interact with them, exchanging social niceties ("The weather's fine, isn't it?", "Where are the good sirs traveling to?") and maybe engage in some simple trading with them (food items, tools, metals).

In addition, these NPCs would sometimes head (some more difficult path-finding code would be needed) for campfires and braziers if they are nearby and accessible, and they would hang around them for some time, standing, sitting and sleeping (in their bedrolls?) at night. This would allow the player to set up "marketplace" type area in his castle yard and leave the gates open for the day, to attract NPCs.

NPCs would defend themselves if they are attacked, but would ultimately flee if the distance between them and the player is sufficient or they cannot reach the player. They would drop little to no loot if killed.

These traveling free-lance NPCs could provide the backbone of the player's hired labor and men-at-arms when these are finally implemented. Then the player could go to his castle yard, find these guys hanging around the brazier and hire these vagabonds to serve him.

Players could also basically choose whether to get involved with these NPCs, by building their castle further away from the road if they don't like to interact with them.